Hugging Face introduces Microduck, a $399 robot duck that can sing and roller skate
The Hugging Face platform has announced the sale of Microduck, a cute, 25 cm tall open-source robot duck.
The Hugging Face platform has announced the sale of Microduck, a cute, 25 cm tall open-source robot duck.
The robot costs $399, and the first deliveries are expected to begin before Christmas, TechCrunch reports .
According to Hugging Face CEO Clem Delang, Microduck was created to democratize physical artificial intelligence.
The robot is able to walk, pick up objects weighing up to 800 g with its beak, get up after falling, squat, and even roller skate. The robot is controlled by reinforcement learning algorithms.
https://t.co/KXKqDSkNJj pic.twitter.com/aqRsWwcVTQ
— clem 🤗 (@ClementDelangue) August 27, 2026
The robot navigates in space thanks to a camera, lidars, and two inertial measurement units (IMUs).
The entire SDK, simulations, and RL training stack are available on GitHub. Developers can train bot behavior in a simulation and immediately transfer it to a real device.
Delang emphasized that open-source solutions are much more secure from a privacy perspective than “closed systems” controlled by corporations. However, experts warn that third-party applications installed on top of the model can still access the camera or microphone.
The project was developed in collaboration with the startup Pollen Robotics, which Hugging Face acquired in April 2025 to create affordable AI hardware.
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